Idaho Tries to Rein in a Recidivist Lothario

BOISE (CN) — Calling a recidivist con man an out-and-out “Lothario” with a string of aliases, Idaho sued him in state court, saying now he’s got women helping him defraud investors.

The Securities Bureau of Idaho’s Department of Finance sued Richard F. Guyon in Ada County Court, claiming that this time he’s persuaded at least two women he met in prison to help him rip off local investors for more than $2 million.

Guyon’s history of financial frauds began no later than 1987, when he defrauded the Bank of Boston of $76,756 in a student loan scam, applying for loans for himself and in the names of three other people, including his father. He forged the applications and signatures and “also forged certifications of a purported university official,” the state says in the April 13 lawsuit.

While being tried for that in 1991, Guyon failed to appear on the fourth day of trial, fleeing in the middle of his own cross-examination. He was arrested about two weeks later, in Idaho or Wyoming, after having been convicted in absentia and sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Idaho explains in a footnote that the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, “writing about Guyon’s early convictions and appeals,” placed his arrest in different states.

After that arrest, Guyon, a busy man, faced additional bank fraud charges in Virginia Federal Court. He was convicted in 1992 and sentenced to 37 months in prison, the first 30 to run concurrently with the Massachusetts sentence.

After being released, he was arrested again, in North Carolina in 2002, and charged with defrauding “CM,” with whom he had a romantic relationship, of $80,000 to $180,000.

Using the alias Michael A. Banks, Guyon told CM he had a computer consulting business, and that he loved her. He gained access to her bank safety deposit box, stole savings bonds and forged and cashed them, forged checks from her accounts and cashed them and “cloned or stole her ATM card and withdrew funds,” the state says.

He was convicted again, in North Carolina, and sentenced to 175 months in federal prison and 5 years of supervised release, for access device fraud, forgery and bank fraud.

In 2015 he was released from prison with 5 years of supervision, under the condition that he “shall not incur new credit charges or open additional lines of credit without the approval of the probation office.”

It didn’t take him long to tread the primrose path again. “Since arriving in Idaho [in 2015], this Lothario has convinced at least two women, both of whom he dated, to assist him in defrauding several local investors of over $2 million. He met them online while incarcerated, and shortly after he was released on supervision he moved in with one of them and began working with the other,” according to Idaho’s complaint.

Now calling himself Rick Thompson or Rick Garrison, Guyon told his newest victims that “he was managing a $12 million portfolio of family money, and although he was not seeking investment clients, he would do them a favor and invest their money for them,” Idaho says.

It adds: “He was vague about the specifics of his investment management, but he said he had written a computer algorithm that guided trading, primarily in ‘Asian stock markets’ and ‘offshore trades in offshore accounts.’”

These ambiguous opportunities were enough to persuade investors to hand over money to the businesses he had set up with the help of his female accomplices, the state says. He spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of their money in the next 18 months.

Jane Does 1 through 5 are named as defendants along with Guyon. One of them, whom he met online, helped him get credit cards, a car and a cell phone in her name, according to the complaint.

“Guyon helped with the rent and expenses, and he did eventually reimburse her for all or almost all of these in-her-name expenses,” the state says. “These arrangements allowed him to skirt his supervision restriction of not opening new credit accounts, and are consistent with practices that operate as a fraud or deceit upon another.”

Idaho charged Guyon with two counts of fraud, securities violations, failing to register, and unlawful conversion, and charged the Doe defendants with materially aiding his schemes. It wants his assets frozen, more than $2.2 million in restitution to his victims, and at least $60,000 in civil fines.

Lothario was a character in Miguel de Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” who was asked by a friend to try to seduce the friend’s wife, as a test of her fidelity. That one didn’t work out so well either.